


Demons

by Cumbermarvel (UglyJackal)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Character Study, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 18:26:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15225261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UglyJackal/pseuds/Cumbermarvel
Summary: ‘We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them.’





	Demons

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: The Avengers discover just why Stephen is the Sorcerer Supreme.

‘ _We never lose our demons, we only learn to live above them._ ’

 

Sometimes Stephen wasn’t altogether sure if he was living above his demons or whether his demons were living above him. He hadn’t known rest in months, years, how long had it been since he had had a peaceful rest? How long had it been since he hadn’t woken up with the words, ‘I’ve come to bargain’ still wet on his chapped lips? How long had it been since he hadn’t had a nightmare?

Before the crash. It must have been. Before the days when he was millimetres away from slicing through his own veins, from stopping his heartbeat. Before the days when he didn’t abuse the alcohol, when he could go a few moments without thinking about how he desperately needed a drink. Before the days when his world turned upside-down, the right way up, left, right and upside-down again, as rocky and frantic as the car that he had crashed.

Even though now, as the Sorcerer Supreme, the fight with Dormammu was a few years behind him, he still became panicked whenever he shut his eyes and saw the darkness behind his eyelids, saw the darkness that could never be as dark as the Dark Dimension. He still shuddered when he was reminded of the countless times that he died on that day, whether that was through seeing someone stabbed or seeing everyone turned to dust around him. He was familiar with the sensation of his soul and body fragmenting into nothing, but he had no desire to relive it.

But that was behind him too. Thanos had been defeated.

So why did it still hurt? Why couldn’t he just let go?

Why couldn’t he get into a car again? Why could he not let Tony drive him around without gasping for breath and needing to get out? Why was he so weak?

 

‘ _Death is what gives life meaning_.’

 

Was his life meaningful now that he had died a million and one times? Because it sure didn’t feel like it. It felt like no one acknowledged his effort. What was the point of saving the world if no one even knew it was in danger in the first place?

Because that wasn’t the point. People knowing about the Mystic Arts, about the Sanctum Sanctorums, about the Sorcerer Supreme, was not the point of what he did, of Kamar-Taj’s teachings. The point was to save lives, even if that meant ruining his own in the process.

But then, he hadn’t really ruined his life. Although the car crash had crippled his hands, it didn’t mean that they were useless as he had once told himself every single day. ‘Your hands are so useless that they probably couldn’t manage to cut the right vein,’ he remembered himself saying to his reflection, eyes full of contempt for the broken man that looked back at him. No, his hands could create portals and weapons from nothing, he could deflect the most powerful of attacks, turn them into butterflies if he really wanted to.

It wasn’t about his hands.

It was about the trauma that came with what he did.

He couldn’t tell anybody. He could tell them what he had done, but it left him feeling sad and scared and more alone than ever. Because he hadn’t met anyone who could relate to what he had gone through. The rest of the Avengers were more about guns and punches than magic and chakras. The sorcerers at Kamar-Taj would likely never know what it was to face an entity bigger than the universe, to die over and over and over in a time loop to prevent that entity from crushing the world.

So he didn’t talk about it. He bottled it up and dealt with it by not dealing with it at all.

But when the Avengers had been hanging out, and had invited him along, it dawned on him that they didn’t know why he was the Sorcerer Supreme. They didn’t know his worth.

So when Captain America had frowned at him and asked, ‘What exactly did you do to be the Supreme Sorcerer or whatever?’, Stephen had hesitated to tell him.

‘Well, what did you do to be the so-called strongest Avenger?’ Stephen shot back, ‘ah yes, you took a serum to chemically enhance yourself. Don’t make out that you think I’m unworthy of being the Sorcerer Supreme, you’ll only embarrass yourself.’

Tony had snorted and was chuckling to himself. He was sat close to Stephen, closer than what could be mistaken for the two of them just being good friends.

Tony had been a surprise. He had never thought that he would meet someone so alike to himself that it was like looking in a mirror. Even when he found out that the arrogance and the sarcasm was just a front that he put on to hide a very scared and very traumatised man underneath, Stephen still saw himself reflected in those whiskey brown eyes. Maybe that was why he had fallen so hard and so quickly for Tony Stark. After all, he had had no problem before in falling in love with himself.

It was also a surprise that Tony had fallen in the exact same way for him. His engagement to Pepper had broken and splintered in a way that it had never done before, and it was for the last time. Pepper realised that she really couldn’t marry Iron Man as well as Tony Stark. So there had been no marriage at all. It had taken a few months before Tony felt that he was in a good enough place to tell Stephen that he had fallen in love with the wizard. And Stephen had almost cried at the idea that someone loved him, even for all his faults and his shortcomings.

But even thought Tony had shared his stories with Stephen, Stephen just couldn’t bring himself to do the same. He couldn’t compare his pain with Tony’s, even though Tony had wanted to know, wanted to help, wanted to stop the nightmares and the panic attacks in the middle of the night. But even if Stephen had told him, none of that would have stopped. Because it was too much for him to get over.

Captain America wasn’t impressed with Stephen’s retaliation. ‘This isn’t about me, Strange,’ he snapped.

‘That makes a change,’ the sorcerer interjected.

‘Do you really want to go head to head with me?’ Rogers shouted.

‘Always so quick to turn to violence,’ Stephen said, coolly.

‘I guess you really aren’t worthy of the Sorcerer Supreme position if you won’t even challenge me,’ Captain America scoffed, ‘guess they just took pity on you, probably because of those ugly hands of yours.’

The table in the middle of the seating area broke as a stray bolt of upset magic hit it. Stephen was shaking with barely-controlled anger. Tony put a tentative hand on his shoulder, only to be shook off. ‘You really want to know?!’ Stephen bellowed, a strong and furious wind billowing about the room, blowing the curtains off of their hooks and glasses off of tables. ‘Then I’ll tell you!’

Captain America said nothing, realising his mistake.

‘I stuck myself in a time loop in the Dark Dimension with Dormammu and died over a thousand times. Just so that he wouldn’t engulf the earth in darkness,’ he snarled, ‘my mentor died and I was the most skilled sorcerer in Kamar-Taj and thus, I was appointed to the position. So if you now think that I am unworthy of protecting this dimension and those that simple-minded idiots like you cannot see, then you can kindly fuck off.’

With a fire blazing in his eyes, he slumped back in his seat and the howling wind stopped as his anger ceased.

He was tired. So tired of having to continuously prove himself. He had had to prove himself to the Ancient One, just so that she would teach him the Mystic Arts. He had had to prove himself to Mordo, that he could do the magic, he could make the portals and the shields, that he could fight, even without killing people. He had had to prove himself to anyone who looked at him; that just because he wasn’t as muscular as Thor or Captain America, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t just as good, if not better, at fighting and saving people as them. Even Tony had questioned him, thought that all he did was make balloon animals, and he had only earned the respect of the engineer after Thanos had been defeated and Tony realised that Stephen’s plan had worked.

And he was so sick of having to validate himself to everyone.

He left the room. He couldn’t be around the pitying faces as it dawned on them just what Stephen had sacrificed. He didn’t want their pity, he didn’t really know what he wanted from them at all.

His feet told him to go to Tony’s workshop. It was where they had had their first kiss; where Stephen had encouraged Tony to sleep after three days of staying awake; where Stephen had held Tony after a panic attack; where they had sat and enjoyed each other’s company. It held many great memories, as well as a few bad ones.

He sat on the floor, back against a counter and looked at his feet stretched out before him. Why couldn’t he just stop feeling? Why did everything have to hurt so much? Why couldn’t he just have one day without retreating into his head like this?

He heard the door open. Heard the footsteps creep up to his side. Heard the words that were said to him. ‘Are you alright, honey?’ Felt the warmth as that someone sat beside him.

He lowered his head onto Tony’s shoulder and sighed heavily. ‘No, I’m not,’ he whispered into the quiet.

The engineer wrapped his arms around Stephen’s shoulders and rested his head on top of the sorcerer’s. ‘It’s okay not to be alright,’ he said, ‘I’m not alright either. And I don’t think anyone really is.’

Stephen said nothing. What else was there to say?

 

‘ _Not everything makes sense. Not everything has to_.’

**Author's Note:**

> Buy me a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/stephenstrangestan


End file.
